Let Me Help
by OtakuLibra
Summary: "There has not been a documented hate crime on Terra in nearly fifty years," Spock says. "Yeah, well, try telling that to some pissed-off kids from a small town in the heartland." Kirk/Spock, Winona.


She gets the call when she's dirtside. Which, possibly, should be a good thing. But she's stuck wining and dining with the Starfleet higher-ups because it's review time, and she's just gotten the specs for the _Constellation_. Constitution-class, they're thinking of calling it. Literally, the _blueprints_ are making her mouth water. If it were possible, she would have that warp drive's _babies_. She really fucking wants on that ship.

And everyone—Archer especially, since he's one of the younger admirals and knows her _way_ too well—is fucking shocked, because Winona walks into her first actual Starfleet function in who the fuck knows how long, and she's wearing a dress. No, seriously. Which, she had to go buy it, because like hell she actually owns one. It's floor length and silky black, and it hugs her body in all the best ways, which can only help. Also, it was the only thing she could find close enough to the feel of her leather jacket for comfort.

So she's talking to Archer, gesturing in small, swift motions as she goes on about how engineering on the new starships is "so fucking beautiful, Archer, holy hell."

And then her comm. goes off. Fuck.

Winona slips the comm. out of her bra, ignoring Archer's questioning eyebrow. Where the fuck _else_ was she supposed to put it? Like hell she was gonna carry a motherfucking _purse_.

"It's my son," she says. "I have to take this."

Archer nods, but Winona's already gone. She's a Starfleet vet; she searches out available escapes the minute she steps into a room, and she's got exit strategies lined up for each one. It's automatic, these days, the way she weaves her way through the crowd to the nearest door. Outside, in the warm darkness of a San Francisco night, Winona flips open the comm., voice taut with barely-leashed emotion.

"Jim," she says, fierce.

There's a pause, and, okay, this isn't Jim. There's no way it's—Jim doesn't pause like that, like he's scared. "_Jim_," Winona repeats, fist clenching around the fabric of her dress. It's cool, sliding through her fingers, nowhere near as satisfying as her jeans. Or her phaser.

There's another moment of silence, then, "Um… Mrs. Kirk?"

"Commander," Winona snaps automatically. Does she _look_ like a fucking _Mrs._?

The kid on the other end, a girl, Winona notices belatedly, inhales, sharply. "Commander," she repeats after a moment, steadier.

Winona hears Jim's voice in the background, low and scratchy. Her whole body tenses, ready to tear off for her motorcycle. The girl is murmuring something to him in a soft, comforting voice, honey warm and speaking an amalgamation of Spanish and Standard.

"What's wrong with him?" Winona spits out, her hand gripping her comm., white-knuckled.

"He's…" The girl pauses again, as if searching for the right words. "He got into a fight, is all. Some of the boys at school. _Pendejos_. He'll be all right."

Winona's nails bite into her palms, and she breathes. A fight. Like Jim's never been in a fight before. He'll be fine. If she can just _breathe_.

"Let me talk to him."

There is another pause, and Winona can hear the girl ask Jim if he wants to talk to her. And she has a moment of panic, of _what if he doesn't?_ It would be merited. Really, it would. It isn't like she's around. Isn't like she's been there to patch up every skinned knee and split lip since he was three. But… She wants to be there for him, and, okay, this isn't Jimmy's first fight, not by a long shot, but she wants to be there. To pretend she knows how to be nurturing, or whatever the fuck maternal instinct is supposed to make her.

She's going. Jimmy's hurt; she can't just stay here. She's getting on her bike and getting the fuck back to Iowa.

Fuck the _Constellation._

She's reaching back into her bra for her motorcycle's starter chip when she hears Jim's voice.

"Mom, don't come."

It breaks her heart, just a little.

"Jimmy…"

"Mom, I'm fine. Edita's got me all patched up, just a couple bruises. I don't need you here."

Edita—the girl, apparently—is talking again, faster. Winona thinks she's trying to convince him to let her come. Nice girl.

But Jim isn't having any of it. And Winona doesn't know how to tell him that she's wanted to be there for every second of his life since she left. Wants to say she misses him, and she's sorry. But he probably wouldn't accept it. He's sixteen, and she's been gone for thirteen years of his life. Off and on, but… He still hasn't forgiven her for leaving, she thinks, after Tarsus.

She shouldn't have done it, but… Space fucking drags her, and it might be wrong for her to love space and Jim equally, but she _does_.

She can't regret that, even if it comes to Jim comming her to tell her he's hurt but not to help. She's a Starfleet officer; it isn't… This isn't what she does. But she listens, sliding the starter chip back into her bra.

"Okay, Jimmy," she says, softer. "Okay. Just… Take care of yourself, will you?"

But he's already gone.

* * *

"I was under the impression that homosexuality was accepted on Earth," Spock says as his fingers drift down Jim's cheeks from their place against his psi-points.

"Fuck," Jim mutters, burying his face into the pillow. "I didn't mean for you to see that."

"There is very little that I do not see, now," Spock points out, and… Okay, having Spock in Jim's head? It's… Really, honestly great. Most of the time. And then Spock goes and brings up shit like this.

"Look, Spock," Jim says, stroking his bondmate's fingers. "It's nothing, okay? It happened… It was years ago. I was sixteen, and kids do stupid things."

Spock looks at him, obviously at a loss. "There has not been a documented hate crime on Terra in nearly fifty years." And that's so Spock, to grasp at statistics when he doesn't know how to deal with emotion.

"Yeah, well, try telling that to some pissed-off kids from a small town in the heartland," Jim says, shrugging.

Spock's hand clamps down suddenly around Jim's, grasping tight enough to hurt. Jim looks at him with inquiring eyes, but Spock can't project that way, doesn't know how.

"I mean," he continues, "It wasn't… I'd been out with girls before. But it wasn't like I broadcast being bi, you know? When I got to San Francisco, I didn't… People don't talk about it; it's no big deal. But back home? I dated girls, and then I had this one boyfriend when I was sixteen—"

Something hot and feral curls in the base of his skull, and Jim can't help but laugh, wrapping his arms around Spock's neck and kissing him, tongue tracing soft reassurances along his jaw. "You know, being as possessive as you are, it's kind of illogical."

Spock's eyes grin at him, with that tint of smugness that Jim can't get enough of, even now. "I find," Spock says between kisses, "that I do not care."

"Well, all right then."

* * *

They're friends, sort of, because he doesn't have to come out to her. She's just _there_, and she gets it without him having to say anything. And really, it's also sort of because she's Kaycee's friend, and Kaycee and Jim go out for a few weeks (which is, like, a really long time for Jim, okay?). Edita outlasts Jim's relationship with Kaycee and his expectations.

He's kind of gotten used to people leaving him, and he figures Edita hangs out with him because he's going with Kaycee. They break up three weeks before Homecoming, and then Jim sort of thinks Edita's waiting for him to ask _her_—which he won't.

But Edita has a boyfriend, a tall, muscled half-Cuban half-Filipino guy named Christian. So.

They aren't—Jim doesn't consider them _friends_, per se.

But when he starts giving Kurt Rousseau rides to school on the back of the bike Jim's mom bought him for his sixteenth birthday, Edita is the only one who just _gets it_.

And the thing is, Jim is pretty popular at school. Not… He isn't personable, really; he's kind of a dick, even when he's sober. But he's sixteen, has a motorcycle and a mom in Starfleet, and wears a leather jacket without anything to prove.

So, when Jack Lawson and his football buddies glare at Jim and Kurt in the cafeteria, it's kind of… weird. Almost like betrayal, like he's somehow offended them by being less-than-completely heterosexual. It's sort of laughable.

That is, up until the day Dane Chandler and Caleb Corbett pin his arms to the wall behind the school and Jack kicks the everliving hell out of him.

"Fucking queer," Jack sneers, green eyes locked on Jim, face scrunched up in disgust.

So Jim laughs, because what the fuck is this, the 21st century?

Jack's fist colliding with his nose isn't really a surprise, but _fuck_. There's blood, lots of blood, but there isn't that sickening crack of bone Jim knows better than he possibly should. Not broken.

And that's when Dane and Caleb grab him, pressing his arms into the brick, where it leaves small, bright pink scratches. He kicks out, trying to keep Jack at a distance, trying to remember what Mom told him about fighting. But his nose is already bleeding and Jim is strong but Dane and Caleb are _stronger_ and Jack is hitting him again, hard across the face.

Jim knows he should do something, something that isn't laughing in Jack's face and taking another hit, this time to the stomach, but he can't think of anything. All he's thinking is that it can't last forever, and he's _tougher_ than these sons of bitches. He'll be fine, if he can just keep himself strong, laughing in their faces.

So he laughs through the punches, and it starts to get some kind of morbid rhythm. He can almost predict it, when and where Jack will hit next. And it hurts, hurts like motherfucking _hell_, but… He can handle it. He _will_.

* * *

"_Que chingados? Hijo de puta,_ Jim, are you okay? Jim!"

Edita is kneeling next to him, fingers brushing through his hair. She's freaking out, if she's speaking Spanish, and he wants to tell her he's okay but his lips are covered in scabs and it fucking _hurts_ too much to talk.

"_Chinga usted_, you assholes," she grits out, cleaning the blood off Jim's face with her jacket. "_Mierda_, Jim, just…" She trails off, and Jim closes his eyes. He so does _not _want to deal with this.

* * *

Edita won't let him drive—even though he's _fine_, goddammit—so she gives him a ride to school. The _all_ fucking know—you don't get to keep secrets, in a town like Riverside. It's… He hates the looks they give him. Edita walks with him, never quite _touching_, just _there_.

Jim sees Kurt around, in the hallways, and… he's sorry, honestly, genuinely sorry, and he's sweet, but there's no way to be normal anymore.

"It's okay," Jim tells him after a few days, says "It's okay," and he means "Goodbye."

* * *

After the bar, he shows up at Edita's place. She's a receptionist at the local doctor's office, has an apartment in the middle of what qualifies as "downtown" Riverside. She's… respectable, and he's rotting in a bar. They don't talk much, these days. But he goes.

"_Ay dios mio, _Jim? What the hell are you doing here?"

Okay, it's three in the morning. So? The point is, she opens the door anyway. He staggers in, checking to make sure he won't get blood on the sofa before he sits down.

"I… I'm going to Starfleet," he says. That's when he decides, sitting on Edita Karmena's sofa, still half-drunk. "There was this guy at the bar, and… I need to get out, Dita."

She nods. "I've known that for a long time, Jimmy."

The pause stretches long, and Jim leans back into the sofa, staring at the ceiling. He's drunk, bone-tired, and… He's ready.

"We weren't ever cut out for living here, were we?" He asks, and it's weird, the way he can't exactly meet her eyes.

Edita shakes her head. "There's something out there for you, Jimmy. Some_one_. Me? I like my life right here. There's still assholes, same as that _bastardo_ Jack Lawson, but… I'm doing good for myself. And you're getting yourself piss-drunk in a bar, you _pendejo_."

Jim… doesn't really have anything to say to that.

"Shuttle leaves tomorrow, 0800," he says, but it's more for his benefit than hers.

Edita smiles. "San Francisco will be good for you."

He grins, crookedly. "Beats getting beat up in an alley, huh?"

"You're all right, Jimmy," she says, laughing. Jim gets up, goes to the door.

"Thanks."

He's halfway down the hall when he hears her voice calling after him. "Hey, Jimmy!"

He turns.

"Call your mother."

Jim looks down. "Yeah. Yeah, I'll do that."

* * *

**So, I'm not sure where this came from. At all. But. Edita Karmena's name came from a random website. I wanted her to be Hispanic, and when I saw that Edita came from Edith I did a happy dance, gave her a last name starting with K, and titled this "Let Me Help." Because "City on the Edge of Forever" and "Operation Annihilate" are two /amazing/ episodes of Star Trek and I am /shameless/. Also, /inordinate/ amounts of research on this fic, from _Constitution-class_ starships to how to curse in Spanish. **


End file.
